The use of battery powered air purifying respirators (PAPR) is well established technology. A PAPR typically includes a forced flow of air to a wearer, a filter, and an electric power supply, commonly a battery, to power the forced air supply, e.g., from a blower or a fan.
Differing types of electrical power supplies, typically batteries, can be used in a PAPR. Examples include a single use disposable battery, a rechargeable battery and an intrinsically safe battery. An intrinsically safe battery is designed to limit the amount of stored electrical energy discharge from such devices which may be hazardous in some environments, e.g., an explosive environment.
Some PAPRs use two types of batteries, e.g., a non-rechargeable battery known as a primary battery and a rechargeable battery known as a secondary battery. Such PAPRs can be used in explosive and non-explosive environments depending on the requirements to be intrinsically safe or not.
Lithium batteries can be used as a power source for PAPRs. Lithium primary batteries provide an advantage due to their intrinsically long shelf life. The long shelf life of lithium primary batteries is due to a battery cell property known as passivation. Passivation is the term used to describe a build up, over time, of a resistance layer in the battery cell. The resistance layer tends to prevent internal discharge of the battery which tends to extend its shelf life. The effect of storage time may have a severe impact on the ability to overcome the resistance effects of this layer by limiting the initial available electrical energy and progressively increases during storage.
A disadvantage of lithium batteries, such as used as primary batteries, exhibiting cell passivation is observed by a drop in initial available voltage, typically called a voltage delay, following the start of use of the battery after a significant period of non-use. The drop in available voltage due to the passivation process having occurred.
When a lithium primary battery is utilized, the resistance layer is gradually depassivated, i.e., “broken down”, and the battery then functions normally, i.e., producing the expected voltage available from the battery. However, until the resistance layer is “broken down”, or depassivated, a lower voltage may be available from the battery than would otherwise be the case.
The effect on the initial electrical energy available caused by cell passivation is also known as a voltage delay. That is, the initial voltage that is available from the battery is reduced, perhaps severely reduced, as the required load to the PAPR is applied. Only after a period of time, during which the process of depassivation is completed, does the expected initial cell voltage return following the removal of the passivation layer.
Such a lower initial voltage may have an adverse effect on the performance of the PAPR being powered by the lithium battery, e.g., a lower volume of air may be available to be purified, and, perhaps, even on the electronic control circuitry of the PAPR. It is possible that such a lower voltage may limit or may prevent operation of the respirator altogether.
This problem can be exacerbated with PAPRs using intrinsically safe power supplies which already limit the current draw available from the power supply in order to safeguard operation in hazardous, e.g., explosive, environments as discussed above, which may increase the time for depassivation.